This week, it's bad luck. Luck, apparently, has betrayed the FC Cincinnati, too, as the Orange and Blue moved to winless in five matches and a three-game losing streak following a 1-0 loss to New York Red Bulls.

There's a lot to dissect from this match, so let's jump in. First of all...

• FC Cincinnati hit the post three times in the second half and a lot is being made of that. That's what has mostly fueled the "bad luck" narrative coming out of Red Bull Arena, but when you take each chance by itself, bad luck has very little to do with it.

The first near-miss was Darren Mattocks whipping it off the outside of the post after rounding New York goalkeeper Luis Robles in the 65th minute. Robles played the situation very well and forced a wider berth in Mattocks' turn past Robles than Mattocks would have liked. Hindsight and replays reveal that Mattocks should have squared the ball to Kenny Saief, who was clearly going to be left unmarked at the back post (the only defender in the picture is dashing for the goal line to stop any shots from Mattocks, and was less concerned with Saief). Mattocks went for goal, though. Clank. Threat averted for the Red Bulls. Saief was left holding out his arms, which has become an increasingly frequent sight.

Next, in the 74th minute, Roland Lamah strolled in on goal and went for power over placement in what was probably the most ominous miss of the night for Cincinnati. The result was another post. Robles did very well to cover the far-post side of his net but left his near post exposed. Lamah's attempt on goal was a bit lazy. Simply placing his take would have resulted in a relatively easy score. He beat Robles over the right shoulder but hit the frame anyway. It simply needed to be a goal, especially with someone of Lamah's ability.

Finally, in second-half stoppage time, Kendall Waston was on the receiving end of a couple of fortuitous bounces but ultimately headed off the top of the crossbar. It actually didn't matter that it hit the crossbar because there was a Red Bulls defender directly below where the ball hit the crossbar – right in the middle of the net. The shot would have been cleared away. Now, there were huge, gaping openings on either side of that defender, so if Waston nods to either side of the goal and get the ball down (as opposed to lifting it over the net as he did), we would have had 1-1.

There are your three posts. None of the chances were especially well-taken, so call it bad luck if it makes you feel better but, well, moving on...

• FC Cincinnati went the entire month of April with one goal – a penalty kick – and no goals from open play. With that in mind, as my friend and colleague Paul Daugherty might say, I may have been wr... wr... not entirely right about a few things related to FC Cincinnati now that we're almost a third of the way through the season.

After beating my chest for weeks about the club's ability to score in a variety of ways and whenever it needed to, the pundits' preseason knock on this team – that it would hurt for offense and who will score the goals?!? – is coming to fruition.

Who will score the goals for FC Cincinnati? Great question. A better question might be who will take the shots because FCC has the second-fewest shots in MLS and a league-worst 25 shots on-target.

A decent forward would be banging some of the recent missed opportunities in. On some of them, a decent forward would be scoring by accident.

This is becoming less about the tactics and the players in the locker room and much, much more about why these particular players were selected in the offseason and expected to produce together. Still, there's time to turn it around, but the club is stuck in reverse for the time being.

• The defense has been largely let off the hook lately because of the lack of goalscoring but Connor Lade's eventual game-winning goal left a lot to be desired of FC Cincinnati's back line. Nick Hagglund started a chain of events that led to Lade's open shot. At best, he miscommunicated with Waston about a ball being played in over the top that led to Daniel Royer's assist on the Lade goal. Both he and Waston unsuccessfully marked the attacking player that laid the ball off to Royer at the top of the penalty area.

From that moment on, FC Cincinnati was completely unbalanced at the back. Mathieu Deplagne got sucked out of position as he chased Royer and that left an expanse of territory for Lade to run onto. And then the goal. Not a good moment during a first half full of shaky play from Cincinnati defensively.

• Where does the club go from here? To Philadelphia, where the Union have taken 17 of the last 21 points this regular season. The Wednesday match at Talen Energy Stadium will close the Cincinnati-Philly season series, and FC Cincinnati needs to reverse the 2-0 loss it suffered against the "U" in mid-April. It was a lopsided, ugly defeat, and another performance like it could have far-reaching consequences for Cincy in the near future.

What will the players and Koch say if another loss occurs Wednesday? They need a result desperately because there are few if any excuses left for this team.